With Great Power
by LifeiscrazybutIamsane
Summary: Maura Isles just wants to make it through high school and out into the real world. She's not prepared for the whirlwind that's about to sweep through her life and knock her off her feet, in the form of one Jane Rizzoli and a seemingly innocuous little bite.
1. Chapter 1

She keeps her head down, eyes focused on her shoes. As long as she gets through the day without being noticed, she'll be okay.

The impact comes first at the back of her right shoulder, then at her left, sending her staggering. She manages to keep her feet just long enough for a third shove to come between her shoulder blades, and her stack of books plummets from her arms and cushions her fall. Her first instinct is to shelter her head, and when no further blows come she glances up in surprise.

Her eyes rise from sneakers to ragged jeans, t-shirt stretched across a muscled back, up to a messy mop of brunette hair. The girl stands between her and Crowe, feet set and hands on her hips. "What the hell is your problem?"

Crowe moves towards her and puts a hand on her shoulder, leaning in close like he's about to tell her a secret. "I don't know who you think you are, new girl, but this is none of your business."

She grabs his hand and slowly pries his fingers from her shirt, one by one. "You thinking you can run around beating people up," she says slowly, enunciating each syllable, "makes it my problem. Are we clear?"

"You don't run _shit_ around here. You'll get the hell out of my face if you know what's good for you." He forms a fist and cocks his arm back, but the girl stands her ground.

"Hit me. I dare you." There's a flash of silver at the brunette's hip, and it takes Maura a moment to recognize the shape of a butterfly knife clenched tight in the girl's fist. "I'm serious, creep. You don't want to mess with me."

The crowds part to allow Maura's Chemistry teacher through, and he grabs the pair by their collars and pulls them apart. "What's going on here?"

"Just a misunderstanding, sir." The girl slides her hand behind her back and closes the knife, goes to tuck it into her pocket but loses her grip, and Maura watches with dread as it tumbles to the ground.

A clang rings out, and the hallway goes dead silent, everyone's attention drawn directly to the source of the noise. The brunette drops to a knee and sweeps up the knife, tucking it away in a pocket in a flash, but she's not fast enough. The teacher shakes his head, taking hold of her upper arm and separating her even further from Crowe. "Great way to start out at your new school, Rizzoli. The two of you, principal's office, _now_." As he leads them away, he turns and surveys the crowd. "Now, I'm sure you've all got classes to go to, don't you?"

In the ensuing chaos Maura is able to gather up her books, and she takes one last look after the brunette as she's led down the hall. The girl looks back, meets her gaze and winks, and Maura's cheeks burn.

RIRI

Jane drags her toe through the carpet, sketching aimless swirls in the fibres as she waits to be called into her pa's office. One of the detectives had tossed her a protein bar upon her arrival, and when her dad pokes his head out to bring her in she shoves the last bite in her mouth and stuffs the wrapper in her pocket.

"Your new principal had quite the story to tell me," Frank comments, sitting back down behind his desk and staring over at her. "Something about you bringing a weapon to school?"

"Po-" she begins, before pausing to finish chewing her snack. "Pop, it was just my pocket knife."

"Where'd you even get a knife? And you pulled it on a _kid_, Janie. If you were nine months older I'd be arresting you right now. How do you think this looks on me? I can't even control my own daughter!"

"He deserved it! He was bullying this girl-"

"I don't give a damn what he was doing, Janie. What _you_ did was much worse. Do you _want_ to go back to juvie? 'Cause that's the track you're headed down if you don't pull yourself together. You promised me it'd be different this time!"

"I'm not about to stand back and watch some kid get kicked around. I didn't then, and I refuse to now. I don't care if you get them to throw the book at me again, I'm not gonna let bullying happen in front of me like that."

Frank sighs and presses his fingers into his temples. "Janie, Janie, Janie, what're we going to do with you?" She shrugs a shoulder and stays silent. "How about this. You give me your knife right now. Korsak's been asking about starting up an intern program. I'll put you in on that if you swear that _this_ won't happen again. The second I get wind of anything approaching this, you're out of the program and I'm charging you myself. We got a deal?"

Jane digs the knife from her pocket and tosses it on the desk in front of him. "Deal," she mutters, reaching out and shaking his hand firmly.

"No weapons, no bull. You want even a chance of getting on the force someday? You keep your head down and your record clean."

RIRI

Four days go by before Maura sees the mysterious brunette again. After connecting the snippets of conversation she's heard while walking the halls, it becomes apparent that the girl was suspended for stepping in between her and Crowe, and Maura's not quite sure what direction the conversation is supposed to take when they bump into each other before last period on Friday. She runs through options in her head before finally sticking with the classic greeting. "Hello."

"'Sup." The girl doesn't spare her a second glance, instead shoving through the crowds towards her class. Maura trails after her blankly for a moment before it clicks that they've got the same lecture, and she picks up her pace, determined to snag a seat near the girl in order to thank her. _Totally not because she's kind of cute, no, not at all_.

Maura settles into the seat beside the girl, _Jane, her name is Jane_, and then leans across the aisle and taps on her elbow. Jane jumps in her chair and spins, grasping Maura's wrist tightly and pushing her hand back, then slowly letting her loose. "Oh, crap, I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that." She shifts back into her seat and drops her head to her desk. _Stupid, stupid, stupid_.

"You didn't know." Jane scoots her chair over. "Were you gonna say something?"

"I wanted to thank you for what you did the other day. No one's ever stood up for me like that."

"No need to thank me, any decent person would've done the same," she replies, and shifts back over, her eyes drawn to the blackboard, a move Maura guesses must mean their conversation is over.

She taps on Jane's desk rather than touching her elbow when the lecture comes to a close. "I was wondering if you'd like to get a coffee with me?"

Jane shakes her head with an unreadable look on her face. "I've got an internship to get to, sorry." Maura's face falls quickly, and when Jane catches this she adds, "maybe some other time?"

Maura's frown turns right back into a grin. "Yeah, some other time would be fine. Have fun!" _'Have fun?'_ She curses herself as she peels out of the class and heads towards her locker. _That's the best you can do?_


	2. Chapter 2

"We never did have that cup of coffee," Maura comments. It's been two weeks since they last spoke, and she's cornered Jane in the hallway at the end of the day. One side of the brunette's face is marred by a yellowing bruise that spreads from the corner of her eye down to the angle of her jaw, and when she narrows her eyes at Maura she winces automatically.

"Sorry, I've been busy." Jane grabs a couple of textbooks from her locker and shoves them in her backpack. Her shoulders tense as she leans her forehead against the edge of the shelf. "Taken a lot of time to get settled in." There's an edge to her voice that Maura thinks she recognizes almost immediately, and a sting of rejection worms its way into her head.

"Oh." Maura's face falls._ She could just say she doesn't want to go anymore, that she made a mistake protecting me_. "Okay." She turns to go, but Jane whirls and takes her shoulder gently.

"Whoa there, speedster, slow your roll." She chuckles, letting her hand fall away from Maura's arm. "I didn't say 'no'. You want to go right now? I know this great little place down in Fenway." She pulls on a varsity jacket, though when Maura gets a glance at the front she finds that the letter has been removed.

The grin that spreads across Maura's face is all the answer she needs. Jane zips her backpack and slings it over her shoulder, and Maura swivels to set a course for the front of the school. A hand comes to rest lightly in the small of her back, steering her in the opposite direction, and Jane winks when she looks up in confusion. "I'm parked in the teachers' lot."

Jane's pickup truck is a dull red, the paint worn and chipped, and there are dents in the passenger side that look far too rounded off to have come from an accident. Maura considers asking about the damage, but when Jane smiles at her across the hood there's a flutter in the pit of her stomach that makes her forget all about that line of questioning.

**R&I**

"Do you wanna go grab us a table and I'll wait for our drinks?"

A smile dances across Maura's face as she finds them seats in the corner of the shop and turns to watch Jane at the counter. She's leaning against the display case laughing with the cashier and when they both look over at Maura she spots a bit of a resemblance in their faces, in the angle of their cheekbones and the jut of their jaws. Jane punches him in the shoulder lightly before grabbing their drinks and a pastry bag from the counter and weaving her way through the shop to join Maura.

Maura murmurs her thanks when Jane passes her one of the cups. The brunette catches her glancing back to the counter and grins. "That's my brother, Frankie."

Maura meets the boy's gaze and waves at him. "Does he go to our school too?"

"Nah, he's at the Catholic one up the street."

"Why do you go to different schools?"

She shrugs a shoulder, fiddling with the edge of the pastry bag before unrolling it. "That place wasn't really the right scene for me."

Maura smirks. "You were too much of a troublemaker for them?"

"Yeah, somethinglikethat," Jane says all in a rush, the salt and pepper shakers on the table between them suddenly requiring all of her attention. "You been at Midtown long?"

"This is my second year. I went to private school before, and then my parents decided it was time for me to meet a more… diverse group of people."

Jane's eyebrows shoot up. "'Diverse', huh? That some fancy way of saying blue collar?"

"I-uh-well," Maura stumbles, and Jane smirks back at her, basking in how off-kilter the blonde is.

"Hey, I'm just messing with you. I'm sure glad they made that decision."

"Why's that?"

"Well, I never would've met you otherwise." Jane slides a muffin out of the bag and sets it on the table in front of Maura. "Try it, best lemon poppyseed muffin you'll ever have, satisfaction guaranteed."

"And what'll I get back if I'm not satisfied?"

Laughter rumbles in the back of Jane's throat as she winks at Maura. "Oh, I can assure you, you will be."

**R&I**

The trip to D & H Laboratories that she's been looking forward to since school started has snuck up on her. Somewhere between college applications and study sessions with Jane a couple weeks have flown by, and she's boarding the school bus headed downtown.

"Are you saving this seat for someone?"

Jane glances up at Maura and shrugs. "Well, there's this one genius blonde girl I was hoping would sit with me, but I guess you'll have to do."

She flicks Jane's earlobe, sits beside her and tucks her backpack under her seat. "Did your mother never teach you manners?"

"My ma taught me a lot of things; I just was never any good at listening. You look tired."

"That's exactly what every girl wants to hear."

"Just saying. You up late last night or something?" Jane bumps her shoulder against Maura's with a wink.

"I might have been." They'd been up texting until one, early enough that Maura still might have been able to get somewhere near enough sleep, if she hadn't stayed up longer to read through their conversation a second (and third) time. _Okay, a fourth as well_.

**R&I**

A shock of brunette hair crossing through her peripheral vision for the third time in as many minutes brings Maura's attention up from her page. "Jane, do you think you could pace somewhere else? I'm trying to get all this information down."

Jane skids to a halt and spins to look at her with raised brows. "You're taking notes?"

"You're not?"

She rolls her eyes. "I don't see the point." She gestures at the wall of cages tucked away behind a double layer of glass. "Like we're going to get tested on any of this."

"I just like learning, is that a problem for you?"

"Hey, no, it's cute. I just personally don't see the draw. The work they're doing in the next lab over with blood analysis, sure, that's cool, but spiders? Don't get it."

"It's really quite fascinating work; you just need to give it a chance. They've made hybrid species of spider, it's brilliant..." she gushes, but she's lost Jane's attention by the second sentence, the brunette's head snapping around at a disturbance across the lab, and so she trails off. Jane's inadvertent rejection shouldn't sting this badly.

"Sounds great and all, maybe you can tell me about it later?" Jane points her thumb across the lab. "I'm gonna head over to the centrifuge, I think they're letting us do some experiments. You coming with?"

"I want to finish up this sketch." She flashes the notebook towards Jane and pulls a pencil from behind her ear to crosshatch in a couple of sections of her drawing, getting the shadow just right across the cephalothorax of the spider.

Jane tilts the top of the book so she can see it better and grins. "Hey, that's really good."

Maura blushes and ducks her head. "Oh, it's nothing."

"Nah, that's some sweet talent you've got there." She draws the tip of her index finger reverently alongside the sketch of the spider before poking Maura in the shoulder. "You don't always have to be so modest, kiddo." Heat seeps up her cheeks and she turns her face away as Jane goes to cross the lab.

There's a light pressure on the back of her hand, and then a stabbing pain ricochets up her arm and she winces and swats at her wrist. "_Dammit_." Maura pulls her hand away to reveal the innards of a spider smeared across her skin. She sweeps the mess from her skin and breathes in deeply through her nose as the pain marches down her spinal cord and shoots through her legs.

Jane seems to turn back towards in slow motion, hair gliding through the air. "You okay?" She grabs Maura's forearm just over the bite and gives her a look full of concern as she tries to shake the discomfort out of her bones.

"I'm fine," she mumbles, wresting her arm free and moving to look at the next set of specimens, studiously avoiding every attempt Jane makes to regain her attention. The cages in front of her swim in and out of focus and she squints, _is that a 'g' or an '8'_, but it only makes the blur worsen and then her feet are coming out from under her and when she hits the ground she's flat on her back and boy if that lightshow isn't the prettiest thing she's ever seen…


	3. Chapter 3

Whoops the first attempt at posting this was not only incomplete but the formatting was all screwed up too. How about that.

Thanks to everyone who's following this, and sorry for the wait, my Christmas present was a three week trip to Australia so I didn't really get much writing done then.

**R&I**

She comes to with Jane and her teacher hovering over her, and the rest of the class crowded around behind them. She squeezes her eyes back shut, hoping and praying fervently that she'll disappear, but the tile underneath her remains stagnant, constant. She can hear whispers from the gathered students, a comment somewhere near 'Maura the Snore-a'. _It would be more hurtful if only it _rhymed_!_ Yet it's still embarrassing. She's never wanted to go back to boarding school more in her life.

"Guys, give Isles some room." The young teacher motions to the lab hand standing by her side. "I think Mr. Parker's got some more experiments he'd like to show you?" The technician leads the class to the next room, and Miss Burns turns back toward Maura. "How're you feeling, Maura?"

She sees the mouth forming shapes, but the ringing in her ears doesn't abate enough for her to match movements to words, so she shrugs her shoulders instead.

Burns purses her lips, surveys her momentarily. "So, not right, but not hospital-worthy, is that what I'm getting?" Maura nods as her head clears enough to catch the sentence.

"I'm feeling somewhat light headed," she replies, the partial truth rolling off her tongue with some difficulty. She doesn't want to be the centre of attention any longer than she already has been, and she _is_ fairly certain there's nothing all _that_ wrong with her.

"You just need a bit of a break, yeah?" She nods again, and Burns thinks for a second before pulling Jane aside. After a brief conversation, the teacher crouches in front of her. "Rizzoli is going to stay with you. I've got to get over there and make sure those hooligans don't burn this place to the ground. Sound good?"

"That's agreeable."

Burns stands and looks pointedly at Jane. "Look out for her, alright?"

Jane throws a mock salute her way. "Got it, boss." She settles into a deep squat beside Maura as the teacher walks away. "How ya doing there?"

Maura squints over at her and shrugs again. She reaches a hand toward a lock of hair concealing the side of Jane's face, intending to brush it back behind her ear, but her depth perception is off and she lands a blow on Jane's cheekbone instead.

"Whoa there, slugger, haven't you got one hell of a right hook," Jane laughs as she recoils away from Maura's hand. The blonde's eyes widen and she stares in shock, trying to come up with an apology, somewhere in the range of "Are you okay?" and "I'm freaking sorry", but what slips from her lips is a thousand times worse.

Thanks to the fact her hearing isn't entirely back, Maura screams "_Are you freaking sorry?!_" into Jane's face, unable to regulate her volume. Jane narrows her eyes at her for a second before dissolving into hearty laughter.

"Jeez, Maura, kick a girl when she's down, why don't you."

"I didn't kick you, I punched you... You might be concussed." She reaches her hand out slowly and brushes against Jane's cheekbone. "I'm so sorry, are you okay?"

"It's just a saying," she explains with a bewildered glance at the blonde. "And I'm fine, I've taken worse punches than that and lived to tell the tale." Jane slings an arm around her to help her up onto one knee. "Here, how 'bout we get up off the floor? Accomplish something with our day."

Maura shakes her head as Jane unfolds to stand fully and reaches out a hand to her. Her ears are ringing so badly from the movement that she almost can't focus on the brunette through the pain. She gestures vaguely around them. "What happened?"

Jane glances at the ground and makes a face. "I dunno; one moment you were behind me and the next you were down for the count. Burns said we could go outside if you need a moment to get yourself together."

The headache abates to some degree when she murmurs, "That would be good," and lets Jane help her slowly to her feet. "Lead the way."

**R&I**

They find their way out to a bench on the lawn in front of the lab building and Maura quickly takes a seat. She'd rather not admit it, but standing is still making her pretty woozy. "I'm sorry you don't get to do those experiments," she says, looking up at Jane. "I know you wanted to."

Jane shoves her hands in her pockets and shrugs. "Nah, it's no big. They were more of a relative cool than an absolute cool, and the company's much better down here." She smirks at the blush that floods up Maura's face.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Which, the experiments being a bit blah, or you being a lot more fun than those dumbasses?"

"Well, you've just explained the first, but I'm still unsure about your reasoning on the second."

"You're a pretty interesting specimen, Isles, I must say."

"What are you getting at there, exactly?"

"You're smart and gentle and quite good-looking, and that's a mix you're not usually gonna find in a Beantown public school."

"I'm only 'quite' good-looking?" Maura purses her lips and leans back against the bench.

Jane lifts a shoulder, studiously avoiding eye contact as she gazes up towards the lab building. A red flush is creeping up the back of her neck. "Well, you're... pretty cute." The hand Maura can see balls into a fist in the pocket of Jane's jacket. "I guess. Attractive. I dunno. Stuff."

"I'm... stuff...?"

"You're hot, okay." The flush has climbed to the tips of Jane's ears.

Maura surprises herself with how easily a suggestion rolls off her tongue. "There's a sushi restaurant that opened recently that I've been wanting to have dinner at."

Jane spins back and studies her, before she scrunches her nose up and mimes gagging. "Do I seem like a sushi person to you?"

She arches an eyebrow, somehow managing to keep her features blank. "Rizzoli, would you like to take me on a date or not?"

"Oh, is _that_ how it's gonna be?" Maura nods imperiously, and Jane grins. "I guess I can work with that." She extends a hand to Maura. "Maura Isles, would you do me the honour of going out for sushi with me?"

"I guess, I've nothing better to do with my time." She hold strong under Jane's unamused glare for a moment before breaking. "Of course, I'd love to."

**R&I**

Jane sits with her on the school's front steps until her driver arrives to pick her up. She walks her over to the car, hand lingering at the small of her back, and opens the door for her. "You still good for tonight? Feeling alright?"

"It's only my pride that's damaged."

"Hey, stuff like that happens to the best of us. Pick you up at seven?"

Maura blushes and nods, drumming her fingers on the top of the car door. "Beacon Hill."

"Right." Jane points at her, a huge grin stretched across her face. "You, me, Beacon Hill, seven. Got it." She trips over her own feet as she turns towards her pickup, but pulls herself together and attempts to pass it off as intentional. Maura's still laughing when she closes the car door behind her.

**R&I**

"Maura, darling, would you come into the studio for a moment?" Maura shuts the front door quietly behind her and sighs. Constance must have heard the car pull up the driveway. She drags her feet as she makes her way through the front hall. She hadn't even realized her mother was home; last she'd heard she and her father were at an exhibition opening in Paris. Or it might have been Milan. Honestly, she's lost track; it's been weeks since she's seen her parents.

Though she can't have arrived at Beacon Hill more than a couple hours previously, Constance is already hard at work on an old piece. Flecks of red paint spot her white collared shirt, the stains vaguely reminding Maura of blood, and when she blinks an image of her mother sprawled, wounded, against a maroon-smeared canvas flickers through her head. She shakes the vision away and leans against the door frame, crossing her arms. "Hello, mother."

Constance barely looks up from her work long enough to make eye contact. "Good afternoon, Maura." She sweeps the brush across the canvas in a broad arc. Maura isn't at all sure the direction in which she intends to go with the painting; the work has sat untouched in the studio for as long as Maura can remember, partially complete. "Your father and I flew in from San Francisco this morning, as you'll remember we had that charity benefit to attend." She doesn't remember. They'd most likely forgotten that she should be informed of it. Her chest burns at the thought. "We plan on staying in Boston for the next few months; I have a gallery opening coming up, and your father has a few high profile patients to work with." Perish the thought that they'd come back to spend time with her, not that she really expected such at this point.

She nods sharply, before she realizes the movement will go unseen. "I understand. I'm tired, I'm going to take a nap before Jane picks me up tonight."

She instantly regrets letting that much information slip, as it's apparently interesting enough for Constance to devote her full attention to the conversation. Her brush sends beads of red cascading across the dropcloth when she sets it aside. "Who's Jane?"

"She's a friend from school, Mother. We've studied together a couple of times."

The surprise is clearly evident on Constance's face for a brief moment before she reins it back in, impassive. "That's nice, dear." She swivels on her stool to pick up her brush, and Maura stands uncomfortably in the doorway for a moment before she takes the movement as her cue to leave.

**R&I**

It only takes a moment for her to fall asleep once she crawls into bed, but her nap is anything but restful. Her dreams are plagued by spiders, all clones of the one that landed on her wrist this afternoon. At first there's only one, following her down the sidewalk as she makes her way to the Commons, but as she moves out onto the grass the spiders seem to come from the earth itself, crowding around her, refractive eyes glinting in the sunlight. The torrent doesn't stop, mounds of spiders building up around her, and she trips, but her fall is halted by thousands of miniscule legs. There's an itching at her sides and tears in her shirt preface the many-jointed limbs that burst from her torso.

It feels as if the entire surface of her skin is on fire.

Maura bolts up, breathing heavily, and bites back a scream. It takes her a moment to reach composure, long enough for her to realize that she's clinging to the ceiling of her bedroom by the tips of her fingers and the soles of her feet and staring down at the sheets on her bed, all in disarray. She loses focus and suddenly she's plummeting through the air in slow motion. She exerts enough force to rotate her body into a standing position and lands softly in a crouch in the centre of her mattress.

_What the hell is happening to me?_


End file.
